Cold As You
by ConsultingWerewolf
Summary: Molly felt sick — absolutely and horrendously sick to her stomach. She gripped the pipette and stared into the petri dish, willing herself not to cry. She couldn't do that, not while they were here.


Molly felt sick — absolutely and horrendously sick to her stomach.

She gripped the pipette and stared into the petri dish, willing herself not to cry. She couldn't do that, _not while they were here_.

She wouldn't give Sherlock another reason to think she was boring and weak.

Why had she let herself hope that this, whatever _this_ was, with Sherlock would progress into anything deeper?

He trusted her and came to her when she was needed — that was is.

She shouldn't have dream of more, shouldn't have assumed.

For three years she'd kept his secret, even as John, Lestrade, and everyone who'd known him had crumbled — she'd stayed quiet.

Because she'd made a promise, she knew how important it was to him that it be kept.

She should have known. She was normal, boring, just a pawn in the game.

Sherlock wasn't normal, he never was and was never going to be, so why should he think of her as anything else?

Her chest tightened, and through her bitterness she chanced a look up from her work at him.

He stood tall and handsome, like always, across from her; his black coat and hair illuminated by the fluorescent lab lights. Molly was momentarily mesmerized by his perfectly bowed lips moving as he mumbled out deductions over a bloodied, half-corpse — fresh from this morning — on the table.

He'd come in, demanding to see the body, and now she doubted that he even remembered that she was in the room.

"_You've always counted, and I've always trusted you."_

"_What do you need?"_

"_You."_

The memory of three years ago flashed through her mind — 'No.' She thought 'No, I'm not the one you need.'

There was only one thing Sherlock's world that mattered as much as the work, just one other thing that Sherlock needed to balance himself out... John Watson.

The man, who after only a day of knowing him, had wormed himself into a place in Sherlock's mind that Molly had been trying to even _glimpse_ for years.

Perhaps they thought that she didn't notice the way their hands lingered against each one another's, or how they would spend a few extra moments than necessary smiling, looking into each other's eyes when Sherlock did something especially brilliant or the subtle was they would brush and lean against each other — but she did. It was painfully, _painfully_, obvious to her.

Love. Sherlock Holmes had found someone he loved, and it wasn't her.

Why not? Why couldn't it have been?

She was the one who'd stuck by him all these years, even being rejected and put down by him time and time again.

But now, perhaps, it didn't even matter. All those things she'd done for him, they'd probably been just a means to get the work done, or to protect John.

What was it that John had that she didn't? Was it because he was a man? What it because he had been in the military? Was was _she_ annoyed and _he_ wasn't?

She caught Sherlock staring at her from the corner of his eye — She let out a small gasp, startled, and looked down to brush the tears away. She heard the movement of his coat as he turned back towards the body, and the rustling of paper.

"John.." She heard him say, "Here, go to this address. I need you to talk to the landlady..."

The rest of the sentence was lost to her as she concentrated on holding back her tears. No, he wasn't doing this. He wasn't going to call her out, call her irrational for feeling like this, was he?

A moment later, after the soft click of the door had echoed through the quiet lab, he was in front of her; She couldn't hold the tears back then, so she let them drip down her cheeks.

For a few minutes, the only sound in the lab was the strangled noise of her small, quivering sobs — she wiped at her eyes with her sleeve, scoffing at the black smudge of mascara — God, she probably looked awful.

Slowly she raised her head, looking up until she was starting him in the eye.

She knew he'd already deduced her feelings, she knew that he knew exactly why she was crying and that he was the reason for it. And still, _still,_ he sat there and stared at her with those icy eyes like he was expecting her to speak, to scream, or to throw the table over and storm out.

But she wouldn't scream, she wouldn't speak; She couldn't.

He broke contact first, looking down and reaching into his pocket to pull out a set of keys; He set them on the counter. "The keys to the filing cabinet in your office. I took them last week, when I needed to look at those files for the case with the seven fingered hand..." His voice was as calm as it always was, flat and deep the sound rumbled throughout the room and only forced another — harsher —sob to rip out from her chest.

Clearing his throat he took a step back from the table, Molly search and tried to catch his eye but he was insistently darting his eyes back and forth throughout the room — avoiding her.

How could he be so cold?

"I've injected the body with the serum I mentioned before, text me if you notice any red appearing on his arms or shoulders within the next half an hour."

For a moment his eyes darted up to meet hers before — with a dramatic sweep of his jacket — he turned and sauntered out of the room.

The moment the door clicked shut her knees buckled and she knelt on the floor, sobbing harder than before.

Damn it. Damn him. Damn it all.

Ack! If you notice any errors that need to be changed, don't hesitate to tell me.


End file.
